The lolicon resource

Lolicon (ロリコン), in the western world, means manga-style sexual artwork involving childlike characters. The term is borrowed from Japan, where it is slang, short for Lolita complex, that refers to an attraction to prepubescent girls,^[1] or to an individual attracted to such a person. Lolicon images are of girls; see shotacon for the male equivalent.

Lolicon in Japan

Lolicon is a Japanese portmanteau of Lolita complex, a term derived from Vladimir Nabokov's book Lolita. Generally, it is a term used to describe an attraction to any girl beneath the age of consent, both perceived and actual pedophilia and ephebophilia. Strictly speaking, Lolita complex in Japanese refers only to the paraphilia itself, but the abbreviation lolicon can refer to an individual that has the paraphilia as well. Lolicon is a widespread phenomenon in Japan, where it is a frequent subject of scholarly articles.^[1] Many general bookstores and newsstands openly offer illustrated lolicon material.

Sexual manga featuring children or childlike characters are called lolicon manga.^[2]^[1] These are generally legal in Japan, although child pornography was outlawed in 1999.^[3] Some lolicon manga also include crossdressing and futanari.^[1]

Lolicon in the West

The meaning of lolicon has evolved much in the West (as have the meanings of other words such as anime, otaku and hentai). In the West, lolicon refers to anime or manga that contains sexual or erotic portrayals of prepubescent or childlike characters, and is thus close cognate to the Japanese term lolicon manga.^[4] The use of the word lolicon is an indication that the material is overtly—even if not explicitly—erotic.^[5]

Controversy & legal issues

Opponents of illustrated lolicon pornography claim that fictional material encourages viewing children as sex objects and can incite actual sexual abuse.^[6] However, there is no evidence to support these claims of causality.^[7] Despite the fact that most lolicon artwork is produced in Japan, there is no evidence that it has caused an increase of violent crimes against children and teens. The number of reported incidents of crime against children in Japan, as well as violent crime in general, is well below that of most other developed countries.^[8]

Legal status in Canada

Section 163.1 of the Canadian Criminal Code defines child pornography as "a visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means", that "shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity", or "the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years." The definitive Supreme Court of Canada decision, R. v. Sharpe, interprets the statute to include purely fictional material even when no real children were involved in its production. From paragraph 38 of the decision:

In October 2005, Canadian courts sentenced an Edmonton, Alberta man to one year of community service for importing manga depicting child sex, possibly the first manga-related child pornography case in Canada.^[10] The man was on probation at the time for possession of child pornography that featured real children.

In April 2006, an American was sentenced to 30 days in jail for bringing child pornography to Canada. While he had possession of three videos and three images of real children, a criminal investigator cited the 13,000 "mostly cartoon" or "anime" images in his possession and the "prohibitive nature of these goods".^[11]

Legal status in Germany

In Germany, the contribution of pornographic depictions of children is forbidden, both realistic and fictive (§ 184b Abs. 1 StGB). But the only possession of fictive depictions of children is allowed (§ 184b Abs. 4 StGB).

Legal status in Hungary

According to the latest definition of the act (Law 1997/LXXIII., Penal Code 195/A. §), "Production of Forbidden Pornography" is only forbidden if an underage person actually suffered through the production process. Due to this, any sort of graphics that were produced without using actual live models, or those using live models that were not sexually abused is legal. (Similarly it is legal if the resulting graphics is not original but a derivative of two or more pictures, in where the original picture of the underage person contains no matter violating the above paragraph of the Code. It does not need to bear any express label that the material was produced by any of those methods; and it is the task of the State to prove guilty, not of the defendant to prove innocent, which, with the recent developments in computer graphics, might be a burdensome if not impossible task.)

Legal status in the Netherlands

On October 1, 2002, the Netherlands introduced legislation (Bulletin of Acts and Decrees 470) which deemed "virtual child pornography" as illegal.^[12] The laws appear to only outlaw "realistic images representing a minor engaged in a sexually explicit conduct," and hence lolicon is not included.^[13]

Legal status in Norway

Any images or videos that depict pornography in a childish context (which also even would include i.e. an adult model with childish clothes/toys/surroundings)^[14] are to be considered child pornography. Lolicon are therefore counted as child pornography, and not legal, in Norway (although this has not been proved by Norwegian court). So far, however, this law has only been used to sentence individuals in possession of real child porn.^[15]

Legal status in South Africa

With the promulgation of the "Films and Publications Amendment Bill" in September 2003, a broad range of simulated child pornography became illegal in South Africa. For the purposes of the act, any image or description of a person "real or simulated" who is depicted or described as being under the age of 18 years and engaged in sexual conduct, broadly defined, constitutes 'child pornography'.^[16] Under the act, anyone is guilty of an offence punishable by up to ten years imprisonment if he or she possesses, creates or produces, imports, exports, broadcasts, or in any way takes steps to procure or access child pornography.

Legal status in Sweden

Any images or videos that depict children in a pornographic context are to be considered child pornography in Sweden, regardless of how realistic or abstract they are.^[17] This means that lolicon is considered to be child pornography and is therefore illegal in Sweden. It has, however, not yet been tried in court.

Legal status in the United Kingdom

UK law has dealt with simulated images quite differently since 1994, when the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act introduced the legal definition of an "indecent pseudo-photograph of a child", which is prohibited as if it were a true photograph (it should be noted, however, that this law is unlikely to include lolicon, as the Act goes on to define a pseudo-photograph as an image "which appears to be a photograph"). The application, if any, to lolicon is as yet untested.

Legal status in the United States

The Supreme Court of the United States decided in 2002, and affirmed in 2004, that previous prohibition of simulated child pornography under the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 was unconstitutional.^[18] The majority ruling stated that "the CPPA prohibits speech that records no crime and creates no victims by its production. Virtual child pornography is not 'intrinsically related' to the sexual abuse of children."

On 30 April 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law the PROTECT Act of 2003 (also dubbed the Amber Alert Law) which again criminalizes cartoon child pornography.^[19] In December 2005, Dwight Whorley was convicted under this law^[20] for receiving both "...obscene Japanese anime cartoons that graphically depicted prepubescent female children being forced to engage in genital-genital and oral-genital intercourse with adult males," and "...digital photographs of actual children engaging in sexually explicit conduct."^[21]^[22] Neither Whorley's, nor any other conviction under this law has been reviewed by the Supreme Court. However, the reason that "lolicon" was used against him in his trial was because he was on parole from prison, and the charge that put him there was having child porn also. Having any depiction of "child porn", this includes lolicon, violated his parole.^[23]

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